


Generation of Interpersonal Closeness

by mozaikmage



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Psychology Studies, M/M, generation of interpersonal closeness test, please tell me that's a thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 01:14:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21939007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mozaikmage/pseuds/mozaikmage
Summary: “Sponsored by X Lab at Y University! Generation of Interpersonal Closeness Experiment! Come for an hour! Leave with free pizza* and maybe a new friend!”Well, that did it. Kenma had no interest in making new friends. He was about to walk away when he noticed the asterisk at the end of the word “pizza.”At the bottom of the flyer, in tiny letters, it said, “the GOOD kind from Stoneworks :3c.” At the emoticon, Kenma frowned a little.---Kenma and Hinata take part in a psychology experiment that can supposedly make anyone fall in love.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kozume Kenma, Kozume Kenma & Kuroo Tetsurou
Comments: 16
Kudos: 153





	Generation of Interpersonal Closeness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RainCloud10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainCloud10/gifts).



> happy holidays, Rain! I hope you enjoy this.  
> (HQ Writer's Server Secret Santa 2019)  
> I read [this article](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/style/modern-love-to-fall-in-love-with-anyone-do-this.html) and thought it'd be a good premise for a fic lol. Not sure how well I pulled it off but! It exists!

It started, as many things do, with the promise of free pizza. 

Kenma saw the flyer for the experiment taped to the outside wall of the psych building after class one day, surrounded by a handful of other, similar flyers for various psychological experiments. This one stood out because a) whoever printed it decided to splurge for color and b) there was clipart of pizza on it, in addition to a large cartoon heart. 

The pizza was intriguing. Kenma stopped walking and looked closer.

“Sponsored by X Lab at Y University! Generation of Interpersonal Closeness Experiment! Come for an hour! Leave with free pizza* and maybe a new friend!”

Well, that did it. Kenma had no interest in making new friends. He was fine with Kuro, Kuro’s boyfriend Yaku, and Kuro’s cats. He was about to walk away when he noticed the asterisk at the end of the word “pizza.”

At the bottom of the flyer, in tiny letters, it said, “the GOOD kind from Stoneworks :3c.” At the emoticon, Kenma frowned a little.

He texted Kuro. 

_ Kenma: is your class doing an experiment about generating closeness or w/e _

_ Kuro: Oh ya why do u ask _

_ Kenma: [img attached] _

_ Kuro: lmao ya I made tht flyer _

_ Kuro: PWEASE SIGN UP _

_ Kenma: why _

_ Kuro: free pizza! _

_ Kenma: :/ _

_ Kuro: free pizza and I won’t force you to go out and socialize for the next month _

_ Kenma: :| _

_ Kuro: is that a more positive emotion I can’t tell _

_ Kenma: it’s neutral _

_ Kuro: so you’ll do it?? _

_ Kenma: [I guess.png] _

_ Kuro: :D!!! _

That was two days ago. Now, Kenma is sitting at a table in an empty classroom at the psych building, signing waivers and feeling a stranger’s eyes on him. He looks up and the boy across from him turns away immediately. 

His hair is very orange, Kenma thinks absently, scribbling down his phone number on the forms and resisting the urge to write “just ask Kuroo” instead.

Kuro is making circles around the room, collecting waivers and exchanging them for ziplock bags full of paper slips. He winks at Kenma when he walks past. Kenma sticks a leg out to trip him, but Kuro steps over it neatly as if he’d anticipated this. 

“Welcome to the Generation of Interpersonal Closeness Experiment,” Kuro’s classmate/co-conspirator announces. “In this experiment you and your partner will go through three sets of slips, either answering questions or completing tasks written on them, and then fill out a short questionnaire afterwards about your experience.”

Sounds easy enough. Kenma sneaks another glance at the kid across from him, his partner for the experiment. He seems small, shorter than Kenma, with fluffy orange hair and huge eyes watching Kenma curiously. He smiles when he notices Kenma watching him, and gives him a tiny wave.

Kuro’s Classmate is still talking. “Go through the slips in order, we’ll tell you when to move on to the next set. You don’t have to go through all the questions in a set, just do what the paper says to the best of your abilities. If it’s a question, one person should read it out loud and then both of you should answer. If it’s a task, one of you should read it out loud and then you both do what it says. Alternate who reads out loud with each strip.”

“Any questions? No? Okay, begin!”

The kid across from Kenma beams at him. “I’m Hinata! Hinata Shouyou. I look forward to learning about you!” He says this so genuinely Kenma is momentarily taken aback. How is he so positive?

“Kozume Kenma,” Kenma mumbles. “I uh... me too, I guess. Do you want to start, or...”

“Oh, yeah!” Hinata takes the first slip in the bag marked Set 1, and reads it out carefully. “Would you like to be famous? In what way?” 

“No,” Kenma says, so sharply Hinata startles at it. 

“Why not?”

“I don’t like strangers paying attention to me,” Kenma mutters, slouching down a bit in his seat. It makes him feel like an insect under a microscope, being picked apart and scrutinized even when he knows no one’s actually looking at him. In the brief amount of time they’ve been acquainted, Kenma can already tell Hinata has never closely examined anything in his life. He seems... not quite safe, yet, but safer than most. Which is unusual.

“What about you,” Kenma remembers to ask him. Hinata hmms thoughtfully.

“I’d like to be famous for being the best at something! Or doing something really cool no one else has done before. Not sure what yet. But if I was gonna be famous for something, that’s what I’d want it to be for.” He nods.

“That sounds nice,” Kenma says politely, not really sure what he’s supposed to say to this. Is he supposed to cheer Hinata on or something? “So, the next question...”

The first set of questions is innocuous enough.

Kenma learns that Hinata Shouyou has never rehearsed what he’s going to say before a telephone call, and last sang to himself on his way to the bathroom that morning. In turn, he tells Hinata that he would rather keep the mind of a 30 year old for 60 years than the body, and that a perfect day for him would involve playing video games under a pile of blankets. After three more questions, he tells Hinata he prefers to go by Kenma, and the smile he gets at that is brighter than the sun.

It’s a little uncomfortable, to be talking about himself so much, but Hinata (“call me Shouyou, then, if it’s Kenma!”) seems so interested. Kenma doesn’t feel truly vulnerable until question 8.

“Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common,” Kenma reads out, and looks up at Shouyou. He feels... caught, almost. Like someone has spotted him tresspassing. Observing what he wasn’t asked to observe. “We’re both guys,” he says slowly. “We’re both students at this university. And we’re both....” He trails off, trying to come up with something. “Under 170 centimeters?”

Shouyou pouts at that, sliding down in his seat, which makes him seem even shorter. Kenma actually feels himself laugh for the first time that day.

“I made you laugh!” Shouyou exclaims in delight, before remembering he’s annoyed about the height comment and pouting again.

“It’s your turn,” Kenma prompts, still smiling.

Shouyou sticks his tongue out childishly, and says, after a moment, “We both have nice smiles.”

Kenma can feel blood rushing to his cheeks.  _ I am going to zip myself up into this hoodie and never emerge,  _ he thinks suddenly, before saying, “Oh.”

“Sorry, was that weird?” 

“No, it’s... it’s true enough,” Kenma mutters, pulling his hood lower on his head anyway. “Uh. Two more things.”

“We both like video games, even though I’m terrible at them and you’re really good! And uh... we’re both? Participating in this experiment? I mostly signed up for the free pizza, to be honest.” Shouyou laughs nervously at that. 

“I did too,” Kenma says. “And also because the guy with the weird hair over there is my best friend, and he basically begged me to come.” Kuro, immersed in a conversation with his classmates, does not notice the slight to his hairstyle.

“We both came here for the pizza,” Shouyou concludes with a nod. “Good job, us.”

“Good job, us,” Kenma repeats. 

They’re in the middle of discussing what they feel most grateful for when the timer dings and they’re told to move on to the second set of questions.

“Aw, we had three things left,” Shouyou points out, sounding disappointed. Kenma doesn’t get that at all, scanning the remaining slips in the set. Did Shouyou  _ want  _ to spend four minutes telling someone he’d just met his life story? “They said it doesn’t matter if we get to every question, though, so let’s just keep going,” he says instead, and reads question 13. “If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?” 

Kenma puts the paper down and makes his expression as deadpan as possible. “Video game release dates.”

Shouyou laughs in surprise, which makes Kenma smile slightly. That’s what he’d been going for with that answer, Kenma realizes. He wanted to make Shouyou laugh at a joke he made. This is strange. Kenma can’t recall ever particularly wanting to entertain someone else before. He decides to file this information away for later.

“What’s your real answer, though?” Shouyou presses him, leaning forward across the table. He props his head up in his hands and blinks innocently at Kenma. 

He looks so focused, so interested in Kenma’s thoughts that Kenma’s face feels warm. He feels like he’s staring into the sun again, and the sun is staring back.

“I don’t know,” Kenma blurts out, after too many seconds have gone by without anyone saying anything. He looks down at the table. “I think video game release dates was true enough. What would you want to know from a crystal ball?”

“Hmm...” Shouyou says. “I don’t know either... I think there’s something exciting about not knowing how everything’s going to turn out in the end!”

“You’re the type to confess to people even when you don’t know if they like you back, aren’t you,” Kenma says before he can stop himself. He’s not sure where that came from, they’re not even talking about romance right now.

But Shouyou just laughs again. “I guess I am, now that I think about it! I got rejected a few times in high school, but it felt better than keeping it to myself. What about you?”

“I’ve never really liked anyone enough to bother with that,” Kenma mumbles. Even if he did, there’s no way he would put himself through the stress of a public confession for anybody. “Let’s move on.” He looks at the next question, and then sneaks a peek at the rest of the questions in this set. They really are more personal than the last set by a long shot, asking the kind of things Kenma couldn’t imagine telling someone he’d just met. But...he can tell Shouyou, he thinks. Shouyou feels trustworthy, somehow. 

Kenma takes a breath, and reads the question.

They end up moving through the second set of questions a bit faster, if only because Kenma doesn’t want to linger over any of these. He supposes the effect is supposed to be like boiling frogs, increasing in intimacy gradually until it feels natural to tell your partner everything there is to know about yourself, but for Kenma, who barely shares these sorts of thoughts with anyone, every question after the crystal ball one feels like jumping into a pool of boiling water.

It is a little easier than it would’ve been with anyone else, Kenma thinks. Especially since Shouyou has to share as much in return. By the middle of the second set, Kenma feels like he knows Shouyou better than most other people in his life.

“What does friendship mean to you?” Kenma reads out, and looks at Shouyou, waiting.

Shouyou stretches his arms over his head. “Hmm, I think... Being friends with someone for me means spending time with someone for fun, talking to them, messaging them... doing things with people when you don’t necessarily have to! Thinking about people when they’re not there, but in a good way... Stuff like that, you know?”

He blinks at Kenma then and leans back a bit, swinging his arms down. “We can be friends after this, right? You’re really cool, and I like talking to you and stuff!”

“Yes,” Kenma blurts out, and feels his face heat up at how fast the word exploded out of him. “I mean. Yeah, that’d be fine.”

Shouyou beams. 

Kenma answers the question himself, and they keep going. Question 22 is a task instead of a question again. “Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner,” Kenma drones. “Share a total of five items.”

Maybe it’s not too late to retreat into his hoodie forever.

“Okay, I’ll start,” Shouyou says like it’s no big deal. “Your hair is awesome! Like pudding!”

“Your hair is awesome too,” Kenma mumbles, staring at the slip of paper still clutched in his hand. “It’s like...” The sun, Kenma thinks. “Orange soda,” he says instead, because it’ll make Shouyou laugh. It does. 

“Three more things. Or is it five each? No, five total, right?” Kenma nods, and Shouyou nods himself, frowning in determination. “Okay. You seem really smart?” He ducks his head down, and Kenma’s surprised  _ this  _ of all things is what seems to fluster Shouyou, even a little. Shouyou rubs the back of his neck and continues. “The way you talk about everything makes it sound like you put a lot of thought into what you’re saying, and I admire that! I just say whatever comes to mind, as you’ve... probably noticed.” He trails off with a laugh.

“I think it’s brave,” Kenma says, so quietly he’s not sure Shouyou can even hear him. But Shouyou’s laughter cuts off suddenly, and he’s looking at Kenma.

Kenma pulls his hood up a bit higher and says, “You’re so...comfortable sharing things about yourself. That’s a positive characteristic of you, I think. You’re open, and friendly.”

Shouyou’s face seems a bit redder than it was earlier. “Th-thank you,” he gets out. “Okay. Last thing... You have a good sense of humor, Kenma!” He lets out a nervous laugh. “Wow, I don’t know why that was so much harder than it seemed to be.”

“Agreed.”

Fortunately, just then the timer goes off again and they have to move on to the third set. 

Shouyou reads the first slip. “Make two true ‘we’ statements each. For instance, ‘We are both in this room feeling...’ We are both in this room feeling... hungry?” As if on cue, his stomach grumbles. 

Kenma grins. “That tracks. We are both feeling... like we did this already. In the first set, remember? Three things we have in common?” 

“That’s right!” Shouyou exclaims. “We are both feeling... interested? I mean. We’re both interested in this conversation.” His cheeks turn pink, and Kenma realizes what else he might be interested in. Hm.

“Yeah,” Kenma says instead, and is bold enough to add, “you’re very interesting.” 

Shouyou is surprised enough to gasp, loudly. “I think you’re interesting too!”

“We are both in this room feeling...” Kenma feels tired, but he doesn’t think Shouyou could ever be tired. “Vaguely embarrassed?” Kenma suggests.

Shouyou giggles. “Sure, yeah!”

Kenma surreptitiously looks through the rest of the slips for this set and briefly considers stalling on this question until the timer runs out. Most of this is stuff he wouldn’t even talk about with Kuro. Two different slips demand the question-reader tell their partner what they like about them. Embarrassing moments, biggest regrets, when did you last cry. All of these questions are just so  _ much. _

Kenma doesn’t want to share all of this. He wants to keep his secrets locked inside of him, tucked away where it’s safe and certain and warm. But he looks at Shouyou, rocking back and forth a bit in his chair, clearly uncomfortable sitting still for as long as they have been and bursting with barely-contained energy, and thinks, he wants to learn all of this about Shouyou. 

So he takes a deep breath, and keeps going.

“If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for them to know,” Shouyou reads, and looks at Kenma. “Uh, people say I’m kind of intense sometimes? You’ve probably noticed by now, haha. If I get really into something I’ll focus on that one thing...”

“I’m not good at taking care of myself,” Kenma admits. “I stay up super late to play video games, and sometimes I forget to eat if Kuro doesn’t make me. And I’m not good at reaching out first, so...”

“I’ll message you, then,” Shouyou says, like it’s the simplest thing in the world. 

Kenma blinks at him, caught off-guard. 

Shouyou withdraws, pulling away from the table slightly. “Do you not want to be close friends after this thing’s over?”

“You do?”

“Of course,” Shouyou says simply. “I like you! I’ve already said what I like about you like ten separate times because of these questions!”

“I mean, yeah, but.” Kenma shrugs and pulls his phone out anyway. “What’s your number?”

They trade phones and type in their info. “Do you want to go to an arcade sometime? Next week?” Shouyou asks.

“I don’t really like arcades,” Kenma admits. “Too many people.”

He pauses, looks away for a second. “But if you wanted to come over and play a game at my place... that’d be fun.”

He can invite Shouyou into his space.

They get through two more questions before the timer goes off. Kuro yells “Time’s up!” and Kenma slumps back in his plastic chair, feeling exhausted to his very bones. 

“That was a lot,” he mutters. Kenma’s head aches a bit, like when he finally stands up after gaming for five hours straight.

“It was, huh!” Hinata agrees cheerfully. “I don’t think anyone’s used to talking about themselves for that long.” He jumps up out of his chair and stretches his arms. Kenma wonders, now, how Hinata managed to sit relatively still for so long.

The psych students collect their ziplock bags of slips and exchange them for surveys asking them to report how close they felt to their conversation partner, compared to how close they feel to their friends, classmates, family members, significant others. How much do you like your partner? How much would you like to work with your partner on a project in the future?

As Kenma fills in the appropriate bubbles, the scent of fresh pizza fills the air. Everyone in the room jumps up almost simultaneously, questionnaires and tiny pencils abandoned, and makes a mad rush to the tables at the end of the room, where the students are laying out plates and napkins. 

“You have to finish the survey before we can give you pizza,” Kuro’s classmate explains apologetically, and most people sit back down, grumbling.

Shouyou looks at his half-filled sheet in desperation, and then at the people already lined up in front of the pizza table.

“Just put down whatever, it’s not like it’s a test or anything,” Kenma says. 

Shouyou startles, blushing slightly. “Oh. Right, yeah. Thanks, Kenma!”

Kenma huffs and concentrates on his own survey. It’s annoyingly detailed.

He finishes writing first, but waits for Shouyou to catch up, watching him fill in the bubbles. “There,” Shouyou sighs, pushing away from the table. “Pizza time!” He glances at Kenma to make sure Kenma’s following him, and practically skips off to the table, singing a little song about how great pizza is that he seems to be making up on the spot.

Free from the confines of the experiment, Shouyou is buzzing with energy and excitement, bouncing up and down and striking up a conversation with the person in line ahead of him. The dull fluorescent lighting of the classroom washes everyone out, but Shouyou still seems to glow under it, bright and warm like sunshine.

Kuro grins at him, knowing and annoyingly smug, when Kenma hands him his stupid survey thing. “Was it as bad as you expected it to be?”

Kenma scowls, and looks over to Shouyou for a second. Shouyou sees him and waves cheerfully.

Kuro gasps. “Kenma! Did you, perhaps, make a new friend?” He leans in, leering. “Did you successfully  _ generate interpersonal closeness  _ with someone?”

“Shut up.” 

Kuroo tilts his head and studies Shouyou, who just knocked over a tower of paper cups with his elbow and is trying to put them back. “He seems...loud.”

“He’s not that loud,” Kenma says. “Not annoying-loud.”

“I seeeeeeee,” Kuro drawls, smirking at Kenma in that particular way of his that means “I figured everything out and am very proud of myself for it.”

Kenma rolls his eyes. “Don’t you have papers to sort or something?” 

He goes to find a quiet place to eat and wait for Kuro to finish.

He’s a little surprised when Shouyou sits down next to him, against the far wall of the room and at a distance from everyone else. 

“I kind of thought you’d take the free food and go,” Shouyou comments, and it’s strange to think they’d only met an hour ago for how well Shouyou knows him now. “but I’m glad you’re still here!”

“I’m taking the train back with Kuro,” Kenma says, curling into himself a bit more. Though if he’d really wanted to leave by himself, he could have, easily. He just... didn’t.

“I see.” 

They sit in relative silence for a few minutes until Shouyou says, “Did you mean it?”

“Mean what?”

“You said I could come over and play video games with you sometime.” 

“Oh.” Kenma did say that, huh. He pulls his hoodie down over his face. “When are you free?” 

**Author's Note:**

> [ twitter ](twitter.com/mozaikmage/) || [tumblr](cubistemoji.tumblr.com)


End file.
